British Identity, Knowledge of Countries, Intergroup Attitudes and Sport Participation of Newham Pupils in the Run-up to the 2012 Olympics

A study recently completed by Virginia Lam has been examining the national
identity, sports participation and knowledge about countries among primary
and secondary school children in East London in the run-up to the 2012 London
Olympics.

There is a surprising lack of systematic psychological research into the link
between group identity (including national identity such as Britishness) and
sport participation although it has been discussed by academics in other
disciplines. With the London Olympics looming, the sense of national
belonging among the British public has likely become heightened. This study
investigated Newham children's and adolescents' British and ethnic
self-identity, knowledge about in-(British) and out-group (foreign)
countries, and attitudes towards their people, competitive attitude and sport
participation in the year running up to the Games.

Over 400 pupils aged 5-15 years were tested using standardised measures.
Results show that strength of British identity declined towards later
childhood (from 8-9 years) whereas that of ethnic identity remained
relatively stable with age. Knowledge about countries shows improvement at
different ages depending on the knowledge domain (geography/emblems/civic).
Pupils' liking for, and stereotypes of, different nationalities did not
differ at age 5-6 years, but diverged from 8-9 years--if liking for different
nationalities converged again at age 14-15 years, when pupils stereotypes of
the groups were most different. Pupils showed increasingly negative
stereotypes of the British, but nevertheless preferred them as one of the
most liked groups, with age.

Both competitiveness and sport participation decreased with age, but the type
of activities they played varied as a function of age, gender (football
became vastly more popular than any other sport with age, particularly in
boys) and ethnicity (cricket was particularly popular among Asian pupils).
Pupils with lower family affluence reported the greatest discrepancy between
generic and actual participation, indicating they are afforded fewer
opportunities to play sport. Those with a stronger sense of British identity
tended to like the British more, but not necessarily also stereotype them
more positively nor like foreign groups less. These findings are discussed in
the light of follow-up research with the same pupils being planned for the
post-Olympic period (autumn 2012).

The preliminary findings (from primary school schools) had been presented as
a poster at the UEL Undergraduate Research Internship awards evening in
October 2011. The full study's initial findings were presented in an invited
talk by Virginia Lam at the Centre of Psychiatry, Queen Mary, in April 2012
and an abstract has been accepted for oral presentation at the BPS Annual
Conference of Developmental Psychology (Glasgow) in September 2012. The full
paper has been submitted to the British Journal of Developmental Psychology
and a non-technical report for schools is available through the Mega Event
Cities website (July 2012 archives):
http://megaeventcities.wordpress.com/home/.

Ginni